The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign. – Evidence for Democracy has released the candidates’ responses to its questions about science in Canada. And Canadian Dimension offers replies on key issues facing Canada’s left, while Drew Brown suggests that the leadership campaign should be focusing on bringing the NDP closer toward the successes of ...

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Glen Pearson makes the case for transcending cynicism in our politics, including the choice to stay involved once an election is done. And Ian Welsh reminds us that our definition of property is socially established – meaning that many of the assumptions as to what we can ...

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Alan Rusbridger explains the Guardian’s much-appreciated effort to provide both space and analysis of the need to fight climate change. And Naomi Klein makes the case for a Marshall plan-style response to transition the world to a sustainable society, while highlighting the need for a public push to ...

This and that for your mid-week reading. – Erin Weir posts the statement of a 70-strong (and growing) list of Canadian economists opposed to austerity. Heather Mallick frames the latest Con budget as yet another example of their using personal cruelty as a governing philosophy, while the Star’s editorial board goes into detail about the ...

This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Economist takes a look at the effect of international trade agreements – and confirms the long-held concern that the erosion and non-enforcement of labour standards consistently follows the signing of government suicide pacts: Some results are rather unsurprising. Countries with better civil liberties tend to have ...

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Angella MacEwen rightly slams the Cons’ attempt to use Employment Insurance funds as a subsidy for employers at the expense of workers. And Don Lenihan sees the Cons’ structure as a cynical means of trying to claim success by ignoring the actual purpose of funding for training: ...

Assorted content to end your week. – Glen Hodgson and Brenda Lafleur explain how Canada’s lower and middle classes alike have been left out of any economic growth as a result of increased inequality: We believe the more accurate interpretation is that after worsening in the 1980s and 1990s, income inequality and poverty in Canada ...

Here, on how the Cons’ abuse of supporters’ donations can only stoke cynicism about the value of participating in politics – but how the limited number of people currently involved in politics creates a huge opportunity to change the system. For further reading…– Samara’s poll and analysis on public participation can be found here (PDF). ...

by: Obert Madondo | @Obiemad: Earlier this week, National Post opinion writer Chris Selley said that if the southern Alberta floods had touched Edmonton, that city would become “a smoking hole in the ground at this point, infested with twitchy-eyed, machete-wielding savages“. A gigantic sarcasm fail that turned out to be. Edmontons took to Twitter and, using the hash ...

An outdated and insulting column from an appointed hack. The dumbest bit: Members of various ethnic communities are fed up with platitudes. They are active members of our society at all levels, and they demand no special status – they just want an equal opportunity to contribute to the continued development of their communities. That’s ...

Assorted content to end your week. – While we may sometimes lose track of the continuing differences between Canadian politics and those in the U.S., here’s a reminder of how we’re familiar with a far wider and more progressive range of public policy choices: while we’ve seen plenty of discussion about improving the standard for ...

Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Lawrence Martin questions the media’s obsession with fabricating stories out of imagined motivations and insignificant shifts in poll numbers: In the year before an election, the media’s heavy focus on tiny political twists and turns is understandable. Here in Canada, a federal campaign is likely a long way ...

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Karl Flecker discusses how the Cons’ push to encourage employers to use temporary foreign workers will affect wages for everybody: In fact, what Kenney said was untrue. He has conveniently forgotten that his government significantly changed the wage rules for employers hiring high-skilled migrant workers. On April ...

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Derrick O’Keefe calls for a mass movement to stop the Harper Cons in their tracks now, rather than waiting for 2015: Thoughts of ousting Harper in 2015 are well and good, but not nearly sufficient at this perilous moment for democracy and social justice in Canada. Given Bill ...

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Lana Payne weighs in on the Cons’ goal of reducing wages for Canadian workers: As an economist, Stephen Harper must know what his government’s changes to employment insurance (EI), the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), the elimination of the Fair Wage Act and the assault on collective ...

This and that for your weekend reading. – Doug Saunders points out that we have a relatively simple choice between seeking to exact revenge on criminal offenders and actually reducing crime: We know exactly why Norway has such lower recidivism numbers. Prisoners, being under constant observation, are very easy to study, and they’ve been studied ...

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne tears into the Cons for being interested solely in developing a junk labour market where both work safety and income security are sorely lacking. And Chris Selley offers his own rebuttal to the “no such thing as a bad job” mentality: Mr. Flaherty’s sound byte might ...

Assorted content to end your week. – Erin points out that there’s a relatively simple cure for Dutch disease – just as long as provincial governments are willing to put citizens ahead of resource extractors: (S)ince resources are priced in American dollars, the higher exchange rate further reduces provincial resource revenues in Canadian dollars. Saskatchewan’s ...

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that the McGuinty Libs’ choice to emphasize austerity rather than stabilizing Ontario’s economy may lead down exactly the same destructive path travelled by Greece and other countries: (T)he crises in Spain, Portugal and Greece occurred because government spending cuts designed to remedy debt problems ...

Thanks to an end-of-week conference it’s been a few days since I’ve done a general roundup on the NDP leadership race. And based on the pace of activity, it looks like we’re into the home stretch as candidates enter the last couple of weeks in which to sign up new members. – Niki Ashton unveiled ...

Yes, we’re at the point in the campaign where we can’t go a couple of days without plenty of developments – even in the absence of formal debates or other major events. So let’s take a look at how the week ended on the campaign trail. – Niki Ashton received a glowing review (if not ...

Miscellaneous material to end your weekend. – Chris Selley rightly points out that for all the damage the Cons can do in a term of majority government, we shouldn’t overstate how much of it is irreversible. And more importantly, while it’s well worth putting time and effort into defending the institutions under attack to the ...

Assorted content to end your week. – pogge points out the Cons’ suppression of news that a lack of running water on First Nations reserves facilitated the spread of H1N1 – offering a case in point as to both how neglect of social needs can carry widespread ramifications, and how little interest the Cons have ...

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Yes, it’s absolutely asinine that the Cons’ attacks on Muslim women have been extended to denying citizenship based on a particular type of clothing. But after the Cons’ repeated efforts to suppress veiled voting, we shouldn’t expect anything less from them. And indeed the goal looks to ...